I think DUers are missing the significance of the 9/11 hearings

[worldgonekrazy]

A little bit ago I put up a poll asking what the result (in terms of damage to the Bush Administration) would be from the commission. The most popular choice, as of now? "No harm at all"!!! This is just not possible, and I'll tell you why.

First I must impart my take on the proceedings. I watched every minute of it Tuesday and Wednesday, so while you may question my interpretation you cannot question my knowledge. Anyhow, the key (of course) was Mr. Clarke's testimony, in which it was established that the Bush Administration did not act enough to prevent 9/11. This is huge, but only as laying the groundwork. In and of itself, its pretty bad, and I think the commission was hoping that would be enough. But the Bush Administration has made it clear that they will not go silently, and it will now be necessary to take further measures. We know they can. We know there is more to the story.

Hell, in the first day of testimony a few commissioners alluded to some of the more explosive inconsistencies. For example, the woman on the commission (Democrat, sorry, don't remember her name) brought up the NORAD procedures for intercepting airlinres when interviewing Rumsfeld. Anyone who was watching at the time could tell that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers were absolutely terrorified by the question. Another example was when Commissioner Roemer (I think) brought up the fact that the bin Laden family was flown out of the U.S. when he was questioning Clarke. The Commissioners did not really seem interested in getting answers to such questions at this point (which they knew they wouldn't), so I believe the true purpose of these "questions" was to threaten the Bush Administration: go along with the negligence angle or we will have to push farther.

Somebody else also astutely caught the fact that George Tenet let it slip that there are "recordings" and minutes of the NSC meetings prior to 9/11. These could potentially end up being the next Watergate tapes and I believe are already planned as a potential ace-in-the-hole if needed.

The stage has been set. The public is now aware that the Bush Administration dropped the ball on intel. Now, if the Bush Administration does not cooperate and slip quietly away into the night, the commission will push further. Certain members of the commission (Roemer, Ben Veniste, they aforementioned woman, and perhaps Kerrey) are willing, in my opinion, to push things as far as they must so that some level of justice is served.

What level of justice? I can't really say what they would be happy with, but given that they have been investigating 9/11 for a year and a half and as such must have at least a fairly good idea of exactly what happened, I cannot believe they would let the Bush Administration get away from this without AT THE VERY LEAST damaging the election campaign to the point where Bush is nothing but a lame duck as early as July.

I personally think they will go farther. I think they will demand at least that some key people step down, and they may go for an impeachment or two. Yes, it is close to an election, but I think these are steps that must be taken to thoroughly discredit the Bush Administration and anyone associated with it.

Actually, as an aside, I personally believe the best thing for this commission to do would be to get the full truth out, no matter how horrific it is. If they do not, this commission stands a very serious risk of turning into another event like the Kennedy Assassination, Watergate, or Iran-Contra where the legitimacy of the government is continuously eroded even further by the very nature of the fact that a good deal of the population simply does not believe them. That is why this must all be put out in the open, the aftermath of that must be dealt with as best as possible, and then as a nation we need to have a REAL dialogue about how we can make sure something like this can NEVER EVER HAPPEN AGAIN.

Arguments/rebuttals from the nay-sayers? Come on people, cheer up! The end is near! (for the Bush Admin that is)

Edited for spelling

[el_gato]

1. did you mean "negligence angle" instead of anger?

end of 3rd paragraph

[worldgonekrazy]

9. Yeah, I'll edit

Thanks for the heads up

[jbfam4]

2. Agree mostly, but

I give Du er's more credit.......These hearings will play a vital role in Bush going back to Crawford.

[movonne]

4. I really hope that you are right...no way can we take 4 more years

of this.

[ChompySnack]

3. I belive it

Clarke's testimony is just the tip of the iceburg. It is almost as if they are laying the groundwork for them to hide the fact that it was LIHOP by giving them the easy out of blaming Rice and a few others. It is a long campaign and I think Kerry has unasked for friends in his quest to unseat the most corrupt president in US history.

[dryan]

8. 911 Hearings very damaging to bush

I think that the 911 Hearings (particularly this round) are very damaging to President bush. Firstly, all kind of holes have now been shot through their inferences that President Clinton didn't do enough to fight terrorism. Tuesday and Wednesday, high officials in the Clinton Administration testified to all they had done. In fact, I didn't know until last night when I saw a rebroadcast on Cspan of Sandy Berger's appearance that there had been a conspiracy to shoot down the Pope's airplane by Al Queda in the mid-1990s. Secondly, this is the only thing the President has got to run on. He can't run on any domestic achievements that's for sure.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. There was a conspiracy to kill the Pope

not to shoot down his plane.

When the Pope was visiting the Philippines in the mid 90's a couple of terrorists had an apartment there, where they were putting together a bomb to blow him up with. However, they managed to set themselves on fire and came running out of the building when the Philippine police caught them, red handed or rather red butted. Of course, the fire lead the authorities to the apartment where the fire started and they found all the makings for killing the pope. They also recovered their computer with the plans for hijacking a number of planes and blowing them up over the Pacific and preliminary plans for flying airplanes into the WTC, the Pentagon, the WH and the Sears Tower.

Turned out that these guys were the same people who had planned the 1993 WTC bombing and they were tried and convicted in NYC for their crimes. All of this was reported in the media at the time but we know Bu$h and Condi don't read much, so they can pretend they didn't know about any of this stuff.

Google Project Bojinka if you want to know more.

[worldgonekrazy]

28. There was also the foiled plan to hijack 12 airliners...

over the Atlantic. I don't know much about it, except that it happened durign the Clinton administration, but a few references were made about it during Berger's testimony.

[Aquarian_Conspirator]

It's #2 on my post, 103 Reasons to Have a Real Investigation

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1288088

2. January 1995 - Philippine police investigating a
possible attack on the Pope uncover plans for Operation
Bojinka, connected to World Trade Center (WTC) bomber Ramsi
Youssef. Parts of the plan call for crashing hijacked
airliners into civilian targets. Details of the plan are
disclosed in Youssef's 1997 trial for the 1993 WTC bombing.
Source: Agence France-Presse, Dec. 7, 2001

[worldgonekrazy]

10. Exactly

They have now laid the groundwork for LIHOP and if the Bush Administration doesn't beg for mercy and fall on its collective sword they will have no choice but to push further. How far they are willing to go is something I am not sure of, but we can be sure that this is just the start.

[BillZBubb]

5. I'll stick with my estimation: little damage to Bush*

The commission will expire before it can proceed down any of the avenues you mention--even if they wanted to. I also think they don't want to take it any farther than a blurry Clinton didn't do enough, Bush* didn't do enough, and the intelligence was lousy. You are reading way too much into certain small items of questioning.

Very few people saw much of the testimony. Most people got snippets on the news that was totally overshadowed by the BushCo smear job on Clarke. The media gave more time to Clarke's critics than to anything Clarke said.

The commission's report will be so watered down that Bush* can and will claim he's done a great job. The idiotic 60% of Americans who think Bush* is a great leader in the WOT will continue to hold that incorrect (and inexplicable) view.

[worldgonekrazy]

14. I disagree in entirety

(1) The Commission has until mid July to put out their report. This was just the first round of questioning on events leading up to 9/11. Next round (mid April) is specifically on intelligence (here it can be established that there was PLENTY of intel the Bush Admin did not act on) and then sometime after that they will do hearings on the actual events of 9/11 (where it can all come out...but won't)

(2) I don't think you are giving the media enough credit. I have seen some very damaging reports on ABC and NBC and CNN has been quite great at covering the hearings. Are they announcing right now that the Bush Administration is directly responsible for 9/11? No, because that would be a hell of a shock for the public to take when most people right now don't have a clue what is going on. That is why you release it in tidbits. Keep in mind, this is just the beginning.

(3) You are right that the commission's report will be watered down, but the commission will make sure they have done irreperable damage to the Bush admin thereby making the necessity of an honest report somewhat moot. They don't want a real report on exactly what happened out there to be kicked around for the rest of history. They just want to deal the death blow and move on without (in their mind) causing too much damage in the people's faith in government as a whole.

[HFishbine]

6. The most excellent woman democrat's name is

Gorelick -- easy enoug to remember if you look at it carefully.

[worldgonekrazy]

15. Thanks

She has done a great job so far. I think, after Ben Veniste, Gorelick is my favorite.

[OneBlueSky]

7. well, you're certainly right about the Commissioners . . .

getting the most damaging issues out on the table and into the public record . . . as they say, "you can't put the fart back in" . . .

[stepnw1f]

11. I Agree With You

I watched most of the Hearings Yesterday, and the question, of the Bin Ladens being transported out of the country, was pushed. In fact, even Richard Clark said that he could only say "under public testimony" that the order must have been issued either from the Secretary of State, or some high official in the White House. That's HUGE!!!! That means he will be testifying further behind closed doors maybe. Richard Clark looked very uncomfortable at that point. VERY UNCOMFORTABLE.

[Sparkly]

12. Question

Will there be a separate commission to investigate what happened AFTER the attacks, or is that a phase 2 of this commission?

[stepnw1f]

21. They did have a second phase however,

they did hint at asking him to possibly answer more questions as well as others.

[worldgonekrazy]

17. Everyone looked uncomfortable

I remember focusing on some of the Republican shills that were trying desperately to control the damage. Their body language was actually painful to see. One guy was hugging himself so tightly with his arms folded across his chest I expected him to start rocking back and forth in his chair as another commissioner tried desperately to console him.

[stepnw1f]

20. Absolutely...

I rather enjoyed seeing them uncomfortable. Richard Clarke held up really well. But he did seem stan-offish when posed with the Bin Laden family transport question.

[worldgonekrazy]

24. I was REALLY impressed with Clarke

The guy oozed integrity, and it was clear that he was a man who had enough. The Bush Administration really made a mistake when they fucked with a guy like that. He's got credibility out the a-hole and is apparently not (very) afraid of talking.

BTW, did you catch the comment made by Kerrey where he essentially symphathized with Clarke for the threats he was getting? It was somewhat cryptic, but not at all hard to read behind the lines. Especially when he said "you don't have to worry because of all the cameras here" and then pretended like it was a joke. Nobody laughed.

[stepnw1f]

25. Yeah...

I thought of that tooo. He mentioned emails right?

[worldgonekrazy]

27. Yeah he did

I don't know if it was just in my mind, but it seemed like a veiled reference to one Dr. Kelly.

[parasim]

13. I too, watched the entire thing...

...and I agree completely with your take on it.

The thing that bothers me about it all, though, is that they probably should have called it the 9/10 Commission, because they only seemed to ask questions about everything that happened leading up to the attacks. However, I didn't hear many questions at all about why we weren't able to stop the devastation on the morning of 9/11. The whole thing about why we couldn't scramble jets in time and things like that. (I don't remember the answers to the NORAD questions)

Also, one of the survivors of the attacks mentioned before the hearings that he thought he heard heavy equipment being moved around on a closed off floor just before the second plane hit and was also wondering about the possible use of explosives in the WTC buildings. Perhaps some of these are questions are far-fetched but they still are valid questions to ask.

and what about Bush flying around the country that morning, or what about putting Andrew Card up there to ask him questions about what went on before, during and after the infamous goat story reading.

There are still many many unanswered questions, let's hope the commission has the guts to go after those answers.

Perhaps Clarke set a good example with his apology and the commission will understand that integrity is still a virtue in this country.

[worldgonekrazy]

19. There will be separate hearings on the day of 9/11 specifically

Commissioner Gorelick mentioned this when questioning Rumsfeld. First she asked about the military's procedures for hijacked airplanes (at which point Rummy's face turned white), then after his sputtering through an indecipherable answer she mentioned NORAD. Then as he tried to sputter through another answer she said something like "well, I guess this really has to do with the day of 9/11. We'll be getting back to you on that when we get to that part of the hearings."

It was an out and out threat. DON'T LET IT GET THAT FAR OR I WILL HAVE TO OPEN UP THE PANDORA'S BOX.

As for some of the other (very valid) questions, I wouldn't really hold my breath on them. Like I said in the original post of this thread, I think the commission only intends to push it as far as they have to. I don't think they want to know the answer to some of these questions, and I can guarantee you they don't want the public to know the answer to most of them (or, indeed, that the question even exists).

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. The last two days of hearings

was specifically to look at the events and intelligence prior to the 9-11 attacks.

The next round of hearings in April is to look specifically at the events and actions of the day of the attack. That is when the really good stuff will come out. Unless of course, Bu$hCo can figure out a way to shut down the hearings before the next round. Time for Code Red maybe?

[worldgonekrazy]

26. At this point they can'd do anything to stop it

If they were to try a trick like Code Red they would be REALLY risking an all out revolt. I am nearly sure the media would not let them get away with it (they are on to them and out for blood...well except for Fox News of course), nor would the families of the victims, nor would the commissioners, and nor, I think, would the people in general. Enough damage has been done to their credibility already that to even try such a manuever would be VERY DANGEROUS for them, IMO.

[tom_paine]

16. I hope and pray your interpretation is correct

[worldgonekrazy]

22. Me too, because if nothing comes of something this HUGE...

I just don't know what I would do. If they can get away with this, they can get away with ANYTHING.

[carolinayellowdog]

29. The tipping point or critical mass

Hey,

So many DUers have seen so many potential Bush downfalls prevented, either by media indifference or obfuscation, that it has led to hopelessness. The "no damage" voters have come to the understandable but IMO false conclusion that absolutely nothing can harm the administration because the media won't allow it. But I sure had a sense of deja vu yesterday, remembering the Watergate hearings and the way the Nixon defenders treated John Dean (whose forthcoming book will be another blow against the BFEE.) The tide has turned and nothing can change that.

Every day we see former * supporters turning on him, and nothing can restore his teflon at this point. We may see an upturn in his numbers when OBL is captured, but it won't last any longer than the Saddam capture bump did.

Not just the gravity of the Clarke charges but the ineptitude of the Bush defenses makes this the tipping point at which anti-Bush sentiment has reached a critical mass among voters and the media.

CYD

[worldgonekrazy]

30. Agreed

I think it will go further than just making him really unpopular, though. I at least expect to see some heads role in the administration, and I think it could lead to an impeachment of Cheney (and perhaps...dare I say it...Bush)

[BabsSong]

31. A question for you and then a comment

I wasn't able to see Clarke's testimony--one of the few things I dearly wanted to see. You mention that they brought up to him about flying the bin Laden family out of USA after 9/11 (is that correct..or did Clarke bring it up himself?). Could you tell me what the answer was or the gist of the discussion. I would think this is part of a bombshell (it really was on all the news the day it happened but people didn't seem to pay attention to it's significance at the time). Secondly, I look at this commission in somewhat a different light. Instead of all of this coming down on the head of the asshole who was in charge on 9/11, this commission is a great way for the repukes on the commission to spread the dung around onto the Clinton administration in order to make the blow less on Bush. Anyone who is pro Bush will see it that way. Anyone who is pro Dem will scream. Thus, no voters change their minds. However, they could if Dems would get on this and start pushing (Clarke's info) but they are remaining quiet on it and letting the repukes have the propaganda airwaves. Stupid, as far as I'm concerned.

[worldgonekrazy]

33. An answer and a countercomment

To answer your question, it was one of the commission members who brought up the bin Laden family thing and tried (though not very aggressively) to find out who it was that ordered the okay on that. Clarke's response was that he didn't know, but that it was done at the request of the Saudi Gov't. He said that it came up during some meeting of the bigwigs on or right after 9/11 and that at the time Clarke PERSONALLY nixed the idea. But then someone else (Clarke couldn't or wouldn't say who) overrode him. He also mentioned that the FBI's stance is that they didn't even want to interview these people(!), and he sort of made some comments as to how bizarre that position was.

Basically, what it comes down to is someone very high level (probably a cabinet member) had to give the okay for that action. This may be pursued later, although I don't know if any of the commission members really want to travel too far down that path.

As for your comment, I think that (because you didn't see the hearings) you are underestimating the extent to which it really appears that Democrats have their ducks in a row on this. They had Clinton administration officials on for the very purpose of rebutting Republican arguments that it was Clinton's fault, but at the same time they were crafty and made it seem like a bipartisan thing. That was the impression the media gave of Day One, which made it much harder for Republicans to argue that Day Two was just partisan attacks.

[molly]

32. Jamie Gorelick

is the woman. I watched both days too. I missed a little of Clarke's testimony because I had a phone call, but he was cool, calm and collected and not threatened. The affects were apparent last nite and today. Condi is going to testify again, BUT not in public and not under oath. What's the point? Does she think everyone will sit down and shut up?

[worldgonekrazy]

34. I wrote an opinion piece that Condi should testify

I think others would do well to do the same. If the pressure is great enough the Bush Administration will have to do something.

[Kool Kitty]

35. Well, whatever everyone is doing, it seems to be

working. Condi just said that she is more than willing to speak to the commission again. And again, she will only do it in private and NOT UNDER OATH. (I saw a blurb about this on MSNBC.)

[JCMach1]

36. I don't expect justice or anything but politicized whitewash

to come from the actual commission...

What the hearings are doing is continuing to define * in an everincreasing negative way.

At some point, the information will reach a tipping point with the public and result in his Fall rejection.

That's the best we can hope for.

[Beam Me Up]

37. I do hope you are right.

I can believe they are, indeed, sending * messages through the questions. However, I find it difficult to believe that a cabal that would, ultimately, be responsible for the deaths of 3000 citizens (and more) would go "quietly". I think these guys are playing for "keeps".

And there is still the underlying question of who is handling this maladministration. It is not *

[mvd]

38. I'm not ready to call it Bush's downfall, but..

I think he's taken a significant hit. I don't see how they can get away with calling Clarke partisan. Also, how can Bush seem strong on the war on terror when his administration failed badly before? Even the many Americans being misled would be hard-pressed.

[74dodgedart]

39. I think the most important thing Clarke has said is that Iraq is

completely unrelated to the WOT.

I don't think you will never pin the blame on any one person or group. Legitimately, there is probably enough blame to go around.

The fact that Iraq was pushed at the expense of the WOT is the real issue. IMHO

[Aquarian_Conspirator]

40. Everyone is Missing the Point. The Commission Will...

cause *enough* damage to bring down the Bush administration, while it will do nothing to reveal the whole truth about what happened, bring everyone involved to justice, or ensure that another president does not use the same tactic in the future. The only reason they are going after the Bush administration is because they are creating a global backlash which threatens the US corporate agenda, not because they have a problem with his goals. Notice how the corporate press has done everything in it's power to keep people from using Clarke's powerful testimony to question our occupation of Iraq. They don't want Bush any more, but they do want the oil and military spending Iraq has brought them, as well as the weapons (like the Patriot Act) against our civil rights which the endless "war on terror" has armed them with. In short, this commission will destroy the Bush administration, but will not reverse any of the critical damage he has done to our democracy, which is still bleeding from deep, neglected, wounds.

[Beam Me Up]

41. Just about sums it up. . .

What we need are real, fundamental, substantive changes. I don't see it happening. Looks like "more of the same" to me.